Well, here it is — the 15th and FINAL poster for my Digital Media Studies Master’s Project. Gravity Probe B was launched in 2004 to test two predictions from Einstein’s theory of general relativity. It was led by the physics department at Stanford, and I actually remember hearing about it when I was a grad student there in 2001-2002. The spacecraft had a telescope which sighted a star in Pegasus as a reference, and precisely measured tiny changes in the direction of spin of four gyroscopes.

Fun facts: The gyros themselves were (at the time) the most nearly spherical objects ever made — perfectly round to within 40 atoms (yes, atoms). Because of the precise orbit required by the mission, the launch window was only 1 second long. And (spoiler alert!) the data gathered by Gravity Probe B over a 12-month period confirmed Einstein’s predictions. That dude was pretty smart, in case you haven’t heard.

And thus, my project is done. Yesterday I turned in my final binder with my entire narrative that will be printed, bound, and stored in the UHCL library until the end of time…or for a while, anyway. Ironically, the final product doesn’t actually include full-size prints of my posters — only reduced files printed on normal 8.5 x 11″ paper. It’s hopefully undergoing review by my advisor and the dean’s office right now.

The logistics involved in getting the whole thing submitted have been a disaster, but I’m going to forego public ranting on that topic for now.

Overall, I am happy with how my project turned out, and I am even happier to be done. As you can imagine, I’m pretty burned out on making posters of space missions at the moment, but if I ever decide to revisit this series there are several missions still on my list — Deep Impact, Stardust, Dawn, Pioneer, Luna, and Genesis to name several. Heck, I could do a whole series of Mars missions alone — Viking, Pathfinder, MGS, MRO, Spirit, Opportunity, Phoenix…well, you get the idea.

Here’s #14 of my Digital Media Studies Master’s Project. Kepler is an orbital observatory sort of like Hubble, but with a very specific purpose — it’s a planet hunter. It trails behind us orbiting the sun and never wavers from looking at the same spot in the sky. There are thousands of stars in its field of view, and Kepler can detect minute changes in brightness caused by planets passing in front of some of those stars. Just last week it found the first Earth-sized planet located in the “habitable” zone around another star!

Fun fact: I always pictured Kepler in my head as something around the same size as Hubble, or around the size of the space shuttle’s payload bay. Turns out it’s a lot smaller! The main sensor is less than 1 meter in diameter, and the whole thing is only ~16 feet in length. Small but powerful!

Last night I presented my Master’s Project as part of a poster session at UHCL’s annual student conference. It was an “extra” that wasn’t actually required for my degree but was encouraged by my advisor — so like a good little student, I signed up. I put together a quick-and-dirty summary of my design process (pared down significantly from what I wrote in my narrative) and printed out 9 of my posters on cardstock.

I had my three favorites — Curiosity, Sputnik and SOHO — printed as full-size posters. After a test round of (cheap) printing done at Staples, I was really unhappy with both the contrast of my “space” background and the quality of the paper. I had suspected this could be an issue, so I’m glad I decided to do the test prints first. I revamped each poster to increase the contrast of the textures, took the files to a better quality printing shop (Copy Doctor in Friendswood, if you are interested) and crossed my fingers. They turned out great!! I was so happy with them!

The poster session itself went just fine. There were several people who stopped by to admire my work and ask questions about how it was done, and I got to check out work from several other Digital Media students as well. All in all it was a successful evening.

These photos were taken on Sunday morning. Jose, Emma and I went out for breakfast and then they tagged along over to UHCL to help me hang my posters. We had a grand time wandering around the mostly empty building and grounds. UHCL actually has a nice little campus with a lot more greenery and wildlife than most parts of Houston, and it was nice to hang out for a bit.

Here’s #13 of my Digital Media Studies Master’s Project. Chang’e is the name of the Chinese lunar program, which has consisted of 3 spacecraft so far with more in the works. Chang’e 1 and 2 were orbiters, but this poster focuses on Chang’e 3, which landed on the surface of the moon in December. It was the first probe to soft-land on the moon since the USSR sent Luna 24 in 1976 — yes, first in almost 40 years — and carried the “Yutu” rover.

The rover was designed to last for 3 months, including stints in sleep mode during each two-week-long lunar night. Near the end of its second lunar day in late January, the rover suffered a failure in the control circuit that prevents it from moving and from folding its appendages to go into sleep mode. On March 14 it awoke again for its 4th lunar day, and although it still can’t move, the instruments onboard (including a ground-penetrating radar designed to measure the structure of lunar soil) still function.

All in all I’m pretty happy with this one. I feel like all of my spacecraft on all of my posters look a little flat and could use some texture, but overall it’s good enough.

Hello!

I'm Sarah, a NASA engineer by day and quilter by night. I live in Houston with my husband and our two young daughters. I've had this ol' blog for more than 15 years, and these days it's home to my quilting work, snippets of family life, and occasional musings on my engineering career.